


Echoes

by Kaatyr



Series: Leopika AUs [2]
Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Audio Format: MP3, Gen, One Shot, Podfic Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:22:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26315626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaatyr/pseuds/Kaatyr
Summary: Leorio buys a house — and discovers that a previous occupant isn't keen on leaving.
Relationships: Kurapika & Leorio Paladiknight
Series: Leopika AUs [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1912081
Kudos: 35





	Echoes

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter is available in audio form for those who would prefer to listen rather than read. Please note that this is a text to speech recording, which means that there may be some issues with it.
> 
> [Stream or download MP3 from Google Drive](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IyfCYuePxlXXDavpcCjjjbauoyAw5WuR/view?usp=sharing)

It didn't take Leorio long to discover why the house he'd just purchased had been priced so cheaply. He'd been so sure that the real estate had made a mistake that he'd double-checked with them, but had been assured that the listed price was no mistake.. The house was two storeys plus an attic and was situated in a densely forested area a few minutes out of town. Leorio had initially thought that the somewhat isolated location and rough access to the place was why it was priced so low, but that didn't explain the discrepancy entirely. Other homes in the area were much the same, yet were in a higher price bracket.

Despite Leorio's insistent questions and keen attention to detail, he could find no reason for the low price--and no reason not to buy the house. It was old, a little bit run-down due to lack of care recently, but in much better condition than Leorio had expected. A few things needed fixing here and there, but Leorio could do most of that work himself.

On the first night he spent in the house, however, Leorio learned that the real estate had most definitely forgotten to share a very important detail: the house was haunted.

Definitely haunted, Leorio thought as he hurled a pillow through the air at the window, which kept opening and shutting entirely on its own. The banging noise was driving Leorio insane. The pillow hit the wood of the wall just beneath the windowsill.

"Look, I didn't sign up for a housemate, okay? Piss off!" Leorio snapped at the empty air. "Or at least keep your haunting shit to daylight hours like civilised people!"

Leorio pulled the blanket over his head and squeezed his eyes firmly shut. He had tomorrow off work, but what would he do when he did have to get up early? He couldn't do his job on minimal sleep.

Thankfully, the ghost left him alone for the rest of the night, though Leorio was sure that he woke at about 3am to hear the faint rattling of chains coming from somewhere above him in the attic. At about 4:30, he woke again to hear the soft strains of piano music floating through the empty halls.

That was... actually not that annoying, Leorio thought as he slipped back into sleep.

While the ghost allowed Leorio to sleep, it didn’t give up entirely on its attempts to irritate him. Leorio's laundry kept disappearing, only to turn up in the most unlikely places: at the bottom of a guest room closet, on the porch, in the bathtub, and once, on top of the old piano. Lights would flip on and off, doors would open and close, the stove would turn itself off while Leorio was cooking dinner and faucets would turn on and off.

And those damn chains. Leorio suspected that the ghost dragged them around the house just to piss him off. Yet, in a way, hearing them was a little reassuring because it meant that Leorio knew where the ghost was—unless he had more than one ghost, which was a scary possibility.

In short, the ghost was annoying as hell, but seemed pretty harmless. Nothing it had done had actually hurt Leorio—yet.

But it did inconvenience him quite often.

"Oh, come on. Where's my phone?" Leorio demanded as he rolled out of bed one morning only to realise that his alarm hadn't gone off and his phone was missing from the nightstand. Thankfully, he had a night shift at the hospital so he wouldn't be late, but still...

"I need that phone!" he snapped at the empty air as he searched the room. "If there's an emergency, the hospital needs to be able to reach me. Do you want to be responsible for someone dying because the hospital was short a doctor? Huh?"

Leorio was exaggerating but not by much. If the hospital couldn't reach him, they'd call a colleague, but in a large-scale emergency, they really would need all hands on deck.

Trying to guilt-trip a ghost probably wasn’t an effective strategy, but Leorio hated dealing with this shit first thing in the morning. Being able to vent his frustration, even to an empty bedroom, was a necessary exercise to keep him sane.

Leorio had considered putting the house up for sale again, but truthfully, he really didn’t want to. He’d never get a house of comparable size for the money he’d paid for this one. The ghost would just have to put up with him.

Unfortunately, the inverse was also true. _He_ would have to put up with the ghost, too.

Leorio eventually gave up on his phone for the time being and headed downstairs to make himself some coffee. He discovered that the ghost had been busy with more than his phone that night. Christmas decorations had been strung up all over the kitchen. Leorio had to brush aside colourful, sparkling tinsel to get through the door. Bells jingled as he yanked open cupboards and drawers. Leorio stubbornly pretended not to notice them, as he was determined to ignore the ghost's antics. That worked with naughty children, right? Just pretend to ignore the hijinks until the kids gave up?

Or was that for tantrums, not pranks?

But Leorio couldn't entirely let it go. "It's July," he muttered in frustration as he plucked a candy cane ornament out of his favourite coffee mug. Rather interestingly, no decorations had been strung on the ceiling. Leorio cast his eyes upwards to the high wooden beams as he waited for the kettle to boil.

...Could the ghost not reach that far?

"Y'know, it'd be nice if you cleaned up your messes as well," Leorio commented after sitting down on a stool at the kitchen island to drink his coffee. He didn't really want to explore the rest of the house right now. Who knew how far the decorations extended. Through the entire first floor? Leorio really hoped not.

It took him half a mug to realise that his phone had been returned to him. It sat innocuously on the countertop. Leorio was sure it hadn't been there when he'd entered the kitchen.

"Thanks," Leorio muttered, not sure if the ghost actually deserved any gratitude, since it had taken the phone in the first place.

Months later, while cleaning out the attic, Leorio found an old box of photo albums that must have belonged to previous owners. He was curious, so he brought them downstairs and went through them. Two were wedding albums, one was more general, and one was a baby album. The name on the cover of the baby album was written in a language Leorio was not familiar with.

Leorio often wondered what had happened to the previous owners of the house. Why hadn't their family members taken their belongings? Leorio could understand leaving the larger pieces of furniture like the piano. The family might have thought it was too much of a hassle to deal with, but who would leave photo albums behind?

The wedding albums were depressing. They reminded Leorio that he was, in fact, single. He had a decent job, was a pretty handsome guy, if he did say so himself, yet he couldn’t seem to stretch a relationship past a one-night stand.

Leorio liked going through the baby album the most. Watching the pudgy, ugly little baby grow up into a cute, blond-haired kid with a mischievous smile and an intelligent gleam in his eyes was a calming experience. Leorio felt that he was holding a whole decade in his hands. Months passed by with just the flip of a page.

Leorio didn't have a baby album. He'd been an only child, as the boy in the photos must have been, too, but his parents had been much too busy to bother with chronicling their son's growth.

When Leorio went to the living room to look at the album a few days later, he found that it was gone. The other albums were still on the bookshelf where Leorio had left them, but there was a conspicuous gap where that one should have been.

"Seriously?" Leorio snapped to the air. "Could you leave that alone, please?" He was uncharacteristically angered by the theft of the album. It felt... sort of personal. Even more personal than when the ghost had taken Leorio's phone.

The album didn't actually belong to Leorio--he'd just sort of inherited it, so he had no reason to feel so possessive over it, but he did. It felt as if the ghost was somehow disrespecting the kid in the photos by using the album as part of its petty game.

Unlike with his phone, the ghost didn't see fit to return the album. Leorio found it a few weeks later in a spare room. Leorio had cleaned the room several times on his rounds through the house, but hadn't paid it much mind. Just another guest room, he'd assumed.

However, this one seemed to be furnished for a boy. The bed was a single bed covered in a patterned blanket. A wooden box of old toys sat beneath the window. It looked as if it hadn't been opened in a very long time. A bookshelf was stacked with dusty, dog-eared books. Most were non-fiction books but Leorio noticed a few fiction ones mixed in. They seemed to be at about the reading level of a young adult, he guessed.

He found the baby album in the bottom of the closet, hidden behind some more boxes of linen and clothes. Leorio noticed that one of the boxes contained a high school uniform while he was shoving the boxes around to get at the album. The tie hung from the half-open, cardboard flaps, draping down to the floor.

It wasn't like the ghost to hide things so well. It was as if the ghost hadn't wanted him to find the photo album.

Leorio set the photo album on the bed and turned his attention to the boxes in the closet. One contained only clothes, most of which appeared to be for a male of high school age, as indicated by the school uniform.

While Leorio was going through the boxes, he had the uneasy feeling that he was being watched. It was like someone was looking over his shoulder, but whenever Leorio turned his head, no one was there. The room was eerily silent around him, almost as if it were somehow a sacred space, like a church or shrine—or a graveyard.

Was the ghost here?

Leorio found a stack of piano music in one box, a karate uniform and a blue belt in another. The leftover remnants of a life that might have ended months or years ago.

It was the box of school books and supplies that provided an intriguing clue as to the identity of the room’s previous occupant. Most of the school books were labelled carefully and clearly with the same name: Kurapika.

"Kurapika," Leorio muttered, testing out the foreign syllables.

Behind him, the air seemed to grow tense and tight. Leorio turned on his knees, catching sight of the baby album he'd left on the bed. The pieces of the puzzle slid together in his mind.

He could easily picture a blond boy wearing that karate uniform, practicing in the backyard. A blond boy wearing that school uniform and sitting at the piano, staring intently at the sheet music as he played. A blond boy standing in front of that bookshelf, running a finger along the spines of the books as sunset coloured the world orange outside the window.

"Kurapika?" Leorio asked, his voice hushed in the small room.

The presence Leorio had been sensing retreated, leaving the room feeling drafty and dusty.

Though he had no confirmation from the ghost, Leorio was sure that he had it right—the ghost was the boy who had once slept in this room, the blond boy chronicled in the baby album, the boy whose name covered the books in the box: Kurapika.


End file.
